The International Law Of Fisheries

Analyses the concept of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and the international instruments which provide the legal and policy framework to combat IUU fishing. Palma, Tsamenyi and Edeson, University of Wollongong, Australia.

This book examines legal, economic and environmental developments including recent state and international practice.

As fish stocks continue to decline worldwide, coastal States seem to have largely failed in effectively managing fisheries in their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). This study examines the international legal principles for effective EEZ fisheries management and assesses their domestic implementation in a comparative perspective. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, as well as general international law, provides a useful range of norms for sustainable EEZ fisheries management, if carefully interpreted. These include the coastal State's obligation to ensure that the maintenance of the living resources in its EEZ is not endangered by over-exploitation. Additional obligations include the duty to maintain or restore populations of target species at sustainable levels, the determination of catch limits for stocks affected by exploitation, and the duty to apply the precautionary approach. In addition to such environmental requirements, issues of distributive justice and procedural fairness are also included in the analysis. The second part of the book evaluates the implementation of the international legal standards in five selected coastal states (Kenya, Namibia, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico) and the EC. It focuses on the determination of total allowable catch, the allocation of individual fishing authorizations, and the regulation of foreign access to EEZ fisheries as exemplary management measures.

The call by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development for New Negotiation to improve conservation of high seas fishing stocks again challenges the capacity of international law to cope with emerging problems. Examining past and current experience, The New International Law of Fisheries considers the revolutionary changes in the international law of the sea that reached their final stages in the 1970s and discusses their impact on state protection and customary law. It focuses upon the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, particularly the provisions on the exclusive economic zone where the bulk of world fishing occurs, as well as the major international decisions on high seas fishing, including driftnets, the harvesting of particular species, including salmon, tuna, and marine mammals, and the states that occupy coastal areas of national jurisdiction and high seas. This new study should be of particular interest to international lawyers interested in environmental law and the law of the sea and to states where fishing plays a vital economic role.

Through the ages, international fisheries law has been characterized by a dialectic between flag States and coastal States. The institution of the Exclusive Economic Zone marked a milestone in the seaward extension of coastal States’ powers. However, it has not brought the expected results, and coastal States have to a great extent failed to act as “trustees” of global fisheries. An emerging role in the fight against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing has been played by States in their quality as States of active nationality, port States, and market States. Multiple jurisdictional claims raise a number of complexities relating, inter alia, to double criminality, or respect for legality and ne bis in idem principles in the case of prosecution of fisheries crimes. This book investigates the extent and nature of State jurisdiction (prescriptive, adjudicative and enforcement) in fisheries matters, and related problems of coordination. It also discusses the role of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations in regulating fishing activities in different marine areas and in delimiting the States’ respective spheres of power. The entire investigation is functional to critically assessing to what extent the emergence of a new jurisdictional balance pursues the interests of States acting uti singuli, or the general interests of the international community as a whole.

With the growing scarcity of fish resources, instruments of fisheries management become crucial. This publication suggests a legal approach to this isssue, and focuses on six case studies: Indonesia, Kenya, Namibia, Brazil, Mexico and the EU. The case studies are preceded by an analysis of the international law requirements concerning fisheries management, with a focus on fisheries in Exclusive Economic Zones. The final part of the book summarises the case studies and develops a proposal for a 'legal clinic' for fisheries management.